SCO gets spanked in federal court.
One of the most contentious issues in the open-source software community over the past few years has been SCO’s enduring quest to protect its copyright claims on key elements of the Unix operating system. But now comes the news that Federal judge Dale Kimball has ruled that Novell rather than SCO owns those copyrights, which means that SCO’s legal actions over the years — and the millions of dollars in licensing fees it has collected from Microsoft, Sun, and others — have been founded on air. From the *nix community’s perspective, Novell are the good guys and SCO are the unquestionable bad guys in this drama, so now the bad guys are getting theirs.
Dan Farber has an informative writeup of the situation here. What’s hard to convey is the degree of incredulity and rage that has built up in the *nix community over the past few years as SCO has asserted, over and over and over, a legal position that was at odds with the basic understanding — and even some deeply held philosophical beliefs — of the most of the *nix world. SCO’s chief, Darl McBride, has become an industry punching bag for asserting the company’s intellectual property claims, but without ever coming forward and showing all the evidence that would properly establish those claims. Of course, SCO’s detractors said all along that he didn’t come forward with evidence like that because he couldn’t — the evidence didn’t exist, because SCO’s claims were false. Judge Kimball’s ruling gives a world of solace and satisfaction to those detractors, who now have reason to believe that, for all its slowness in resolving the issue, the court system has come to the right verdict at last.
SCO has been nothing if not dogged in this fight, not unlike Rambus was in asserting its claims to key memory-chip technologies right up until the time the courts determined that Rambus had falsely established patent claims on those technologies.* So don’t be surprised if it tries to fight this ruling. Tries, I say — because it may not be able to, if indeed Kimball’s findings and the general sense of the *nix community are as unambiguous as they seem. Rambus has soldiered on; will SCO?
~
* Addendum, Tuesday morning: Turns out my memory was faulty vis-a-vis Rambus, which made it a bad analogy. See the comments for more details.
Category: Legal, Technology19 Comments so far
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I don’t know where you get “the courts determined that Rambus had falsely established patent claims on those technologies”. It has been established in the court of Judge White of the Northern District of California that at least 37 of the Rambus patents are valid patents and infringed by Hynix.
Sheesh …..
Thanks for your comment, Eric - this is what I deserve for relying on my memory for an on-the-spot analogy instead of going back and reading our own (longer, subscription-only) profile on Rambus. I used to be our main semiconductor writer, and back when I was doing that a lot of verdicts were going against Rambus; that’s the memory I was relying on.
So, yes, Rambus won a $300 million judgment against Hynix for patent infringement early in 2006. Fair dinkum.
But Rambus has hardly been seen within the industry as an upright actor. Maybe this is just the natural sour taste created by a company that uses lawsuits, or the threat of them, not just as a crowbar to extract licensing agreements (nobody ever said that business adhered to Marquess of Queensbury rules), but as a central pillar of its business strategy. What’s more, Rambus was also found to have played dirty in at least one ruling, in which a different judge ruled that Rambus had destroyed documents related to a lawsuit against Infineon. Maybe Rambus genuinely was blameless in that case . . . or maybe there’s enough smoke around the company to suggest that it’s reasonable to assume that at least *some* of its legal dealings weren’t kosher. This impression is all the stronger because the FTC ruled that Rambus deceived the JEDEC trade group at the time when the company was establishing some of the patents that later came under litigation.
Anyway, since Rambus has more or less succeeded in its efforts, maybe it provided a model of sorts for SCO: the upside of what can happen if you win enough of your court cases. But at least if Groklaw’s and Dan Farber’s takes on the latest SCO ruling are apt, that upside has been foreclosed.
The judge in the patent case vs. Hynix cut the damages award from $307M to $134M — a courtroom win for Rambus, to be sure, but the judge took a lot of money off the table!
[...] Paul of Ars Technica has a nice summary of litigious saga of SCO, which we discussed the other day. Well, the summary isn’t nice for SCO, which Paul believes is headed for “financial [...]
[...] talked briefly a couple of weeks back about Rambus’s litigous history. (See especially the comments for that [...]
Judge Whyte did take a lot of money off of Rambus’ dinner plate. But it is equally worthy to note that the jury wanted to give Rambus the dough. Maybe there is enough “smoke” around some of the companies involved in litigation with Rambus to assume they haven’t been kosher? Remember, several of these same companies have paid fines totaling in the $100’s millions for price-fixing DRAM resulting in employees spending time as “freedom impaired” at taxpayer expense.
Don’t get me wrong - I don’t have any particular ax to grind against Rambus, and certainly the price-fixing DRAM fraternity gets no love from me. (By the way, as a point of logic, the “smoke” around the other companies says nothing one way or the other about Rambus’s culpability - or non-culpability - in any of this. It’s guilty or not based on its *own* actions, not the actions of its industrymates.)
But look, when you talk about Rambus, you have to talk about multiple lawsuits, some of which were judged to have at least some merit, plus action by the FTC and EU regulators. It’s not all for no reason. And Rambus itself, if they don’t deserve rancor, they also don’t deserve sympathy, because they’ve *chosen* this litigous course of action, and now they’re living with the outcomes, both good and bad.
[...] why I’m claiming victory now. Of course, I’ve also come down on the side of the FTC, more or less, in the Rambus case, so let’s see how that one works out . . . Category: Legal, [...]
With regard to the “smoke around Rambus”. Is it possible the smoke is coming from arsonists not from the House of Rambus? Micron is linked to the initiation of the FTC investigation - they started that fire.
In the Infineon - Rambus matter, the CAFC slapped Judge Payne silly. He didn’t learn and may be slapped again in the Samsung - Rambus matter.
Much of the US DOJ DRAM price-fixing investigation is under wraps as the investigation is ongoing. We do know that Micron is a conspirator in the price-fixing. Also, the price-fixers are the same bunch that claims Rambus was naughty with respect to JEDEC. That should cause a rational person to pause and pause again.
The pending victory you claim with regard to the FTC is a bit hollow as it sanctions Rambus for a very small percentage of the market going forward and none looking back. I view it as an effort to save face.
Time will tell.
When the truth is finally revealed, you just might find that Rambus actually DID
- invent modern DRAM principles
- get valid patents
- survive a horrific, murderous, clandestine scheme
AND that this conspiracy to kill Rambus was hatched by none other than the esteemed Steve Appleton, CEO of Micron.
Wouldn’t that story be a kick? Tune in later to see the finale.
To Any Donkey: First, as a technical point, I have claimed no “pending victory” for the FTC as regards Rambus. To say I’m on the FTC’s side here is merely to say that I think the FTC may have a legit case. (By contrast, their case against Whole Foods was ridiculous on its face.) Beyond that, you have the advantage on me; a quick look at your blog demonstrates that you’ve spent a lot more time thinking about Rambus than I have. You may well be right that Rambus will be exonerated. Since I understand that Rambus has employed lots of smart, hard-working people, I actually *want* them to be exonerated . . . if they’re not guilty of anything. But while I think the FTC case *may* have merit, I don’t have a dog in this fight.
To Peter Kropf: “Murderous”? Seriously? What did I miss?
To both Peter Kropf and Any Donkey: You may be right that Appleton et al. ginned up a conspiracy against Rambus. If he did, and it can be proved, I hope he pays for his crimes. But is the FTC really that much of a rag doll that it can be jerked around by the likes of Scott Appleton? Have I just missed the investigations of him? Or, if he hasn’t been investigated / indicted / similar, why not?
Here is (corporate) murder for you
A June 5, 2001 e-mail from Linda Turner, Micron’s VP for international sales to her staff.
“No problem! We want DDR to explode into the marketplace so have actually been requesting Infineon, Samsung and Hynix to lower their DDR pricing to help it become a standard (and drive Rambus away completely),â€
Look at page 3 here - http://investor.rambus.com/downloads/DocumentsFromAntitrustLawsuit.pdf
As for the FTC’s (yet) unchecked corruption; it is truly amazing and the entire fault for this reality lies squarely on the laps of the Journalistic corps that choose to totally ignore the obvious, blatant corruption of the FTC.
You ask “But is the FTC really that much of a rag doll that it can be jerked around by the likes of Steve Appleton?”
You should also ask yourself
- Who was pressuring/lobbying the FTC to go after Rambus?
- Why, after Rambus won a resounding victory in their CAFC appeal against Infineon, in a ruling that totally exonerated Rambus from any wrong doing at JEDEC the FTC didn’t back off from their unsubstantiated assertions against Rambus?
- Why did the FTC commission AGAIN totally ignored a resounding exoneration of Rambus ruled by their own chief, administrative law judge (in what was a fully developed trial with live testimony, depositions and discovery) and went on to accuse Rambus with out any corroborating evidence while relying on what Rambus now claims (they have the evidence but the FTC commission refused to allow it in the record) to be perjures testimony of non other then Steve Appleton, Micron’s CEO?
- Why is it that so many (far beyond just a coincidence) FTC lawyers/bureaucrats, actively engaged in the prosecution of Rambus were soon after their FTC tenure hired by cartel, (Micron, Infineon and Hynix) first tier law firms?
- Why did the Rambus case, initially announced with plenty of fan fare linger with in the FTC bureaucracy for so many years only to conclude as a mere shadow of the initial FTC thrust against Rambus.
If you answer these questions you will awake to the sobering reality that the FTC is not the professed “protector of the consumer” but rather a business tool in the hands of multi billion dollar business interests or a “rag doll” as you put it.
Administrative “justice” is for sale in the USA
Regards
JhonE
Well, the Ramboids invade, as is often (always?) the case.
It’s a heartrending [litigation] story they tell; one might even be sympathetic if one didn’t read the written description of the 1990 patent specification that is at the heart of all this nonsense. Any issues with that I’ll leave aside for the moment and simply address the “poor Rambus” mewlings that are repeated ad nauseam on behalf of a rather unscrupulous company by its investor club.
Rambus had a longstanding scheme to gain priority over a particular group developing competing high speed packet protocol bus systems, the SCI committee, which was centered down the street from them at SLAC. A 16 bit wide synchronous double data rate interface specification predated the Horowitz & Farmwald “primeval Rambus” patent specification and was in process for JEDEC standardization. A rush to the patent office and plan to preclude development of royalty-free implementations (or at least implementations that didn’t direct royalties exclusively to Rambus and its principals).
“Poor Rambus” did the following:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9302/030425ccpretrialbrief.pdf
” b. A Second Competitive Threat to RDRAM: Ramlink.
By the latter part of 1992, a new competitive threat to RDRAM – then known as Ramlink
– was beginning to emerge. Like SDRAM, Ramlink was a synchronous DRAM architecture that
was being developed through an open industry consortium, sponsored by the IEEE organization.
Many of the same companies that participated in JEDEC’s SDRAM standardization efforts also
were involved in the IEEE-Ramlink discussions. In fact, as reflected in Billy Garrett’s notes
from a September 1992 JC-42.3 meeting, the Ramlink discussions were sometimes mentioned
within JEDEC’s own meetings. See Garrett E-Mail (9/21/92) R155812 at 813 [CX0680] (“An
upcoming Ramlink meeting was announced.â€). It appears that by this time period – i.e.,
September 1992 – Ramlink had definitely hit Rambus’s radar screen.
Rambus’s initial strategy for dealing with Ramlink was quite similar to its strategy for
dealing with SDRAM. By September of 1992, Rambus was working with its patent lawyers to develop patent claims covering both of these competitive DRAM designs. Again, this is clear
from notes taken by Lester Vincent, including the following notes from a September 25, 1992
conference between Mr. Vincent and Mr. Crisp:
– What to include in divisional applications:
1) DRAM – multiple open row address
2) DRAM – programmable latency via control reg
3) DRAM – packet oriented comm. . . .
=> so cause problem with w/ synch DRAM & Ramlink
4) Using phase lock loops on DRAM to control delays inside & outside DRAM
Ramlink – spec – created
part of IEEE
– No license / royalties . . . .
Richard =>
will get me copy of
the Ramlink spec &
synch DRAM spec.
Vincent Notes (9/25/92) R203940 at 940, 943 [CX1949] (emphasis in original).
Richard Crisp was not the only one within Rambus who was concerned about the threat
posed by Ramlink. Mr. Crisp’s boss, David Mooring, was also quite concerned, as shown by the
following e-mail, which Mooring sent to Rambus co-founder Mike Farmwald in late October
1992, regarding an upcoming Ramlink meeting scheduled for November 12:
Before 11/12 our decision options are
(1) Decide they are the enemy and do one or more of:
(a) Kill them ourselves
(b) Convince them to kill themselves
(c) Convince their management to kill them
(2) Ignore it and hope it goes away
(3) Cooperate in some manner with them
Option 1 is current plan. . . .
Mooring E-Mail (10/23/92) R156911 [CX0681] (emphasis added).
By the fall of 1992, concerns about the dual competitive threats posed to Rambus by
JEDEC’s work on Synchronous DRAM standards, and IEEE’s work on Ramlink, had again risen
to the highest level’s within the company. At the September 1992 meeting of Rambus’s Board of
Directors, for instance, David Mooring “reported on potential competition from the JEDEC/Sync
DRAM.†Minutes of Rambus Board of Directors Meeting (9/17/92) R28110 at 110 [CX0605].
At the Board’s October 1992 meeting, similar presentations were made by both Richard Crisp
and David Mooring. Specifically, Mr. Crisp reported to the Board on “the SDRAM status at
JEDEC,†and “the Rambus patent strategy†as it related to “SDRAMs.†Minutes of Rambus
Board of Directors Meeting (10/22/92) R28106 at 107 [CX0606]. Mr. Mooring, on the other
hand, reported to the Board on “competition from . . . IEEE Ramlink.†Id.
Meanwhile, Lester Vincent and his colleagues, in consultation with Richard Crisp and
others at Rambus, continued the process of reviewing the claims in Rambus’s pending patent
applications and drafting and filing amendments to better cover technological features proposed
to be included in JEDEC’s SDRAM standards and IEEE’s Ramlink standard. Their progress in
this regard was recorded in an internal Rambus e-mail – the subject line of which read “Patent
Claim Status†– sent by engineer Fred Ware to Richard Crisp and others at Rambus:
I spoke with Lester Vincent and Tom Lee . . . on the phone
yesterday. The current status of the additional claims that we want
to file on the original (P001) patent follows. . . .
(1) Writable configuration register permitting programmable
CAS latency
. . . This is directed at SDRAMs.
(2) DRAM communication using a packet-oriented protocol
. . . This is directed against RamLink.
(3) DRAM with PLL clock generation
. . . This is directed against future SDRAMs and
RamLink.
(4) DRAM with multiple open rows
. . . This is directed against SDRAMs.
Ware E-Mail (6/18/93) R202996 [CX1959] (emphasis added).34″
All of this might be “just business” but there’s a decision as to whether it’s proper patent practice in light of the written description of the “invention” on which Rambus’s claims are based. There’s substantial evidence within that specification to conclude that Rambus is not dealing equitably and with full candor with the public in that process. It’s necessary that this be fatal to their scheme, since the integrity of the patent system and the legal process (tattered as it is) is more important than the desires of Rambus for what clearly appears to be unjustified reward.
Mr. Kropf, you seem to have made some interesting statements.
- invent modern DRAM principles
“A block diagram of a conventional 4 MBit DRAM 130 is shown in FIG. 15. The DRAM memory array is divided into a number of subarrays 150-157, for example, 8. Each subarray is divided into arrays 148, 149 of memory cells. Row address selection is performed by decoders 146. A column decoder 147A, 147B, including column sense amps on either side of the decoder, runs through the core of each subarray. These column sense amps can be set to precharge or latch the most-recently stored value, as described in detail above. Internal I/O lines connect each set of sense-amps, as gated by corresponding column decoders, to input and output circuitry connected ultimately to the device pins. These internal I/O lines are used to drive the data from the selected bit lines to the data pins (some of pins 131-145), or to take the data from the pins and write the selected bit lines. Such a column access path organized by prior art constraints does not have sufficient bandwidth to interface with a high speed bus. The method of this invention does not require changing the overall method used for column access, but does change implementation details. Many of these details have been implemented selectively in certain fast memory devices, but never in conjunction with the bus architecture of this invention.”
United States Patent 5,243,703
Farmwald , et al.
So nothing about DRAM was changed in a way that could be described as the patentees as being inventive.
- get valid patents
“United States Patent 5,432,823
Gasbarro , et al. July 11, 1995
Method and circuitry for minimizing clock-data skew in a bus system
Abstract
A bus system is described that minimizes clock-data skew. The bus system includes a data bus, a clockline and synchronization circuitry. The clockline has two clockline segments. Each clockline segment extends the entire length of the data bus and is joined to the other clockline segment by a turnaround at one end of the data bus. The clockline ensures that clock and data signals travel in the same direction. Synchronization circuitry within transmitting devices synchronizes data signals to be coupled onto the data bus with the clock signal used by other devices to receive the data.”
That one’s sort of valid, for what it’s worth.
- survive a horrific, murderous, clandestine scheme
“Before 11/12 our decision options are
(1) Decide they are the enemy and do one or more of:
(a) Kill them ourselves
(b) Convince them to kill themselves
(c) Convince their management to kill them
(2) Ignore it and hope it goes away
(3) Cooperate in some manner with them
Option 1 is current plan. . . .”
Oh, how horrible!
Folks, I’m going to close this comment thread and post something separately about Rambus. You can pick up commenting there, if you like.
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